12 top inkjet and laser printers : best printer 2014

best inkjet and laser printers around

 

Best printer: best inkjet printers

What's the best printer to buy? All-purpose printers are a booming market, and you're spoiled with the number of choices available, so here's our pick of the best printers on the market.
In choosing the best printer your first decision should be whether to go for a standard printer, or a multi-function device that includes a scanner and that can also work as a standalone copier.
These aren't much larger than regular printers, but they're a whole lot more versatile, especially when you need to keep a copy of a letter, a bill or any other important document, so our first list includes the best inkjet printers and best multi-function devices.
You should also think carefully about whether to invest in an inkjet or a laser. Lasers are usually associated with office environments, where they produce sharp, smudge-free printouts quickly, quietly and economically, but this can be just as useful at home or in a home office.
And don't imagine that mono laser printers are the only option - color laser printers are now very affordable, and you can even get get multi-function laser printers, too. So we've also come up with a list of the best laser printers, and not just for office users with budgets to burn, but home users looking for value, quality, compactness and ease of use.

 

I’m afraid I agree with the three previous comments. I have an Epson Stylus Photo R200. Epson printers are great until something goes wrong which will inevitably happen as they are designed to fail after so many prints. It then costs you more to get it serviced and repaired at one of their repair centres that it doesn’t make it economical to do so. These are for parts etc that should be user servicable and also for known built in design flaws like the ink counter fault. Contacting Epson for Support only results in them soliciting to you and giving sales pitches for their latest printers or to try and sell you ink when that was never even mentioned or an issue. I’m quite happy with the Jet Tec ink which isn’t a ripp off like the Epson. In the end this poor treatment of customers by Epson such sends them away and to buy HP or Canon products instead.
My trouble now is how do I find a good photo inkjet printer that also can print well onto cds, dvds, blu ray discs? There aren’t many that can do this. I may have to settle on a Canon model now.

Huh! I have been using CIS system and although the ink is relatively cheap by the 5l, the cost of replacement heads is hundreds. Try buying a HP11 based printer and watch it eat heads. Every 12 reams of paper you are onto another head and at over £30 each (and there are 4), it gets very expensive! Aren’t there any really cheap to run secondhand inkjet printers out there?
The cheapest printing ever must be the old HP4500 lasers where bits on ebay are give away. They are massive heavy beasts but go on and on. I have done flyers on one and left it running for a whole week 24/7.I would prefer something a bit faster now – say 30ppm rather than 4.
As for mono lasers…aren’t the toners on those HP’s now all chipped? I keep a HP4+ running and the carts on that are refillable and no chips. One cart can use up to 0.5kg of toner before it is u/s. You can also buy new rebuild kits and put new doctors and drum into them.